Movement | Proclaim the Universal Reign of God - Romans 10:13-15 | July 21

Well, good morning, everybody.

So a couple months ago, God was speaking to me in my quiet time,

and I was listening and jotting down some things He was saying.

I got into it a couple days. I kept listening and hearing the same thing from

the Lord, and I got done with writing some things down, and I was kind of like,

God, this looks kind of like a sermon.

I don't know why you're telling me this, Because in case you don't know,

I don't talk to people much, much less in front of people.

So a sermon note type thing didn't make sense to me. But so here we go.

I was when I was looking at it, I was like, this feels like a sermon.

So if you want me to speak this at some point, if it comes up,

I'll just say yes, because I feel like it was from God.

So a couple of weeks ago, Zach asked me and I just said, yeah,

and here we are. So before I got into construction, I was in nuclear power for 10 or 15 years.

We traveled around the country, all over the country, taking fuel assemblies

out of the cores of reactors.

This is a reactor core.

This is a fuel assembly going into the core.

You can switch to the next one. This is a reactor core with a lot of fuel assembly

still left in it. And that's what we did.

We traveled around. I was a project manager and a fuel handling supervisor in nuclear power.

So our division specialized in taking the fuel out and replacing it. And that's what we did.

So this particular story is going to involve taking the fuel out of a reactor

and putting it in the spent fuel pool.

So there's different groups that have to work together to do this.

Our group has just three people on the core side. It'd be me.

I'd be the fuel handling supervisor.

Caleb in the story, he's going to be MCO, which is a manipulator crane operator.

And he's basically driving the crane that's moving the fuel in and out.

He can't really see down into the core, so he has to rely on me and some other

people to see off of cameras of exactly what's going on underneath him.

So on the plant side, they have what's called a senior reactor officer,

and he has the license for the plant.

He's in charge of everything that goes on on the plant. If you have to turn

on a light switch in a building, you have to call the SRO.

So he's very important, and every decision goes through him.

So we do all the moving and he does all the communicating with the plant and

making sure the plant is in the right condition, that there's no reaction going

on that shouldn't be, and that the temperatures are correct for what we're doing.

So today, Caleb is, it's his first time ever running the crane by himself.

He just got his certs a couple months previous.

He had been moving fuel for probably six months in training,

getting ready, but it's always with somebody beside him, usually me or somebody

else standing right beside him, telling him what to do and making sure he's doing it right.

But today, first time ever, he's moving it by himself, all responsibility. And he's nervous.

He, as you can imagine. So the process for moving a fuel assembly,

Caleb will drive the crane over top of the core. He'll have a location.

He'll take the crane down to that location.

He gets several indications on his crane that lets him know everything's correct.

And once he gets those, he checks with the SRO and the SRO is communicating

with the control room, making sure everything's safe for us to move the fuel assembly.

And he'll get all his indications. He'll look at the SRO and he'll say,

I have all my indications. Do I have permission to latch?

The SRO will communicate and then he'll look at Caleb and say,

do you have permission to latch?

Caleb then is supposed to check with his fuel handling supervisor,

which is me today, and making sure that the crane's in the right position.

There's no debris on the fuel.

There's nothing that can obstruct us from latching. It's just ready to go.

So it's a very important step. He has to check with me or something could go

wrong. We could damage equipment or the fuel.

So it's a big step. So today, like I say, he's nervous. So we go out to the first fuel assembly.

Once he checks with me, I'll give him permission, and then he latches.

After we latch, we take it and drop it off. We go out to the first fuel assembly.

Everything's going smooth. Caleb's running the crane fine. We get over the fuel assembly.

He takes the crane down, gets all his indications, looks at the SRO,

and says, I have all my indications. Do I have permission to latch?

SRO checks with the control room and says, you have permission to latch.

Caleb says, understand, permission to latch. He reaches over,

latches the fuel assembly.

That's air operating just so you know that little sound is what the crane makes

when we latch a fuel assembly so he latches the fuel assembly but he didn't

check with me so i'm a little aggravated

i got to come up off the floor and i walk up while he's raising the fuel assembly

i say caleb look at me and he goes yes sir i said you have to check with me

before you latch the fuel assembly,

yes sir i'm sorry palmer it won't happen again i said all right don't let it happen again Yes, sir.

So we go, drop it off. We come back for the second fuel assembly.

He gets over, gets all his indications, SRO. Do I have permission to latch?

He checks. You have permission to latch. I understand. Permission to latch.

That's my angry face.

I climb up on the crane. I said, Caleb, look at me. Yes, sir.

I'm sorry, Palmer. It won't happen again. I said, look at me.

Yes, sir. I said, do not let it happen again. Yes, sir. I won't do it.

We go, drop it off. we come back for the third one. This time I'm ready. I'm going to catch him.

He's getting more nervous as it happens, right? Every time he makes a mistake,

he gets a little bit more nervous. So I know he's probably going to miss it again.

He comes back over, gets all his indications, SRO, gives him permission to latch.

He says, understand permission to latch. And I said, Caleb, look at me.

Yes, sir. I said, look at me.

Yes, sir. I said, I'm infinitely more important

than this guy right here do you understand me understand infinitely

more important i said that's correct now you

can latch the fuel assembly he said i understand latch he reaches over latches

the fuel assembly the rest of the day he didn't miss the step right i finally

communicated what i needed to communicate finally got his attention so we come

out from moving fuel all day i go into

the supervisor's office, I got to do some paperwork and the crew is getting ready for lunch.

I get done with the paperwork, I go into the crew area, get out my lunch.

We have whiteboards in the crew area.

Where we do our briefings, I'll sit down, I'm pulling out my lunch and I look

up and on the whiteboard, it says, I am infinitely more important than this

guy right here, Josh Palmer.

And I'm just like, and I look over at Caleb and he goes, he just smiles at me.

I'm like, I said, you won't miss it again, will you? And he said, no, sir.

I said, ever? And he goes, no.

So I was, I told the story to the girls, to my family one night and Maddie made

me a painting that goes in my office.

And it just says I'm infinitely more important than this person.

It reminds me of the situation.

So God was talking to me through the story, and I was like, how am I going to use this?

He's like, look at me. I said, yeah. He said, look at me.

He said, I'm infinitely more important than whatever you're talking about with

your people at work or your people on the golf course or your friends that you're

spending your hobbies with.

I'm infinitely more important than that. I said, okay. Yes, sir.

So the mission statement for Mountainside is, we want to be a place where heaven

meets earth by proclaiming the universal reign of God.

Embodying Jesus to our communities, and inviting our neighbors to join us in

becoming real people who are a part of a real family and who worship a real God. are.

So last week, Zach talked about being a place where heaven meets earth and where those two overlap.

And I thought it was a really cool discussion he had about the Israelites being

in the desert and they would follow God in the cloud and in the pillar of fire.

And they'd get to a spot where God would stop and they would stop and they'd

set up camp and they'd set up the temple and God's presence would come down on the temple.

And that's what we're talking about. We're talking We're talking about Sky Ranch,

the presence of God coming down and being with us like today, right now.

We're talking about Deer Valley, wherever we're at as mountainside.

We want that. And I thought, how cool would it be if all of us,

like as a family, as a community, as we're coming in, as we're getting up Sunday

mornings, we just start praying.

Like, God, let your presence be on top of us today.

Fill this room. Fill Sky Ranch. branch, fill the apple barn,

fill Deer Valley, fill the field we're at, wherever we're at, fill our small groups.

Like every time we're getting ready for it, if we prayed for that as a family,

as a community, it'll be there.

Like God will overwhelm us with his presence.

We've seen it several times at church, and there's been many times where the

presence is just thick and you can feel it and it's amazing. So...

Let's just pray for that right now. God, we just ask that you fill this place.

You bring your presence where we're at as a body, as a family.

Here at Sky Ranch today, just be with us. Speak to us.

Give me words that you want me to say.

Let everybody hear what you would have them hear. And just be with us today. Amen, we pray.

So today I'm talking about proclaiming the universal reign of God.

So what is that? It's pretty simple. It's just sharing the gospel.

It's telling others what Jesus did for you, what God did for you.

It's telling others what Jesus did for all of us so that they have the same opportunities we have.

That we're saved and it shouldn't stop with us. The buck shouldn't stop with

us once we gain our salvation.

We should be telling it to others so they have the same opportunities.

It should be infinitely more important than whatever we're talking about.

If we're at work, we have to do things at work, but we should also be running

it through the filter of somehow working it into that conversation.

Julie's been listening to some podcasts and they talk about having real conversations

that lead to God conversations that lead to gospel conversations.

And it's just being intentional about letting that happen.

Somehow look for the opportunity. And so God's speaking this to me like I'm

processing this in front of you.

Like this is God going hey you need to have some

God conversations the buck can't stop with

you Josh you got to have some real conversations that lead

to gospel conversations or you're just holding your salvation to yourself and

not letting somebody else have it and that's pretty selfish and I think the

reason why we don't necessarily spread the gospel as much as we should or share

care as much as we should is we don't have God's eyes.

We don't have God's heart.

We don't look at other people with God's eyes. I look at other people with Josh's eyes.

Sometimes if I've spent time with God, I see other people as God sees them.

And I have a heart for them like God has a heart for them.

But oftentimes I'm busy and I get interrupted by things I'm doing and I get distracted.

And I see people with Josh's eyes and sometimes that's pretty ugly.

Like it's not very patient. It's not very loving. It's not very kind.

It can be very aggravated.

Angry, frustrated, but I would love to have what God sees at the guy in the

grocery store or what God sees at the guy that I'm working with.

And then I think we would be overwhelmed with the desire to tell them about God. So how do we do this?

First of all, we have to live out the gospel. Matthew 5, 16 says,

in the same way, let your light shine before others that they

may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven

so we should we should be taking what we're learning we should be taking what

we're seeing in our quiet time we should be listening for the holy spirit and

we should be living in a way that makes people question why why we live that

way why are we doing acts of kindness why do we love on strangers why do we

do whatever it is but it should be because,

god's speaking to us and we're obeying we're obeying him and then they they

will see a difference and they'll recognize it and that will draw them to whatever

the difference is and that'll give us the opportunity for those god conversations

and those gospel conversations.

We should share the good news mark 16

15 he said to them go into all the

world and preach the gospel to all creation so he's telling us we should be

doing this so god's telling us we should be sharing the gospel we should be

teaching others we should be proclaiming the universal reign of god to others

in our daily lives and everything we do. We should serve others.

Matthew 20, 28, just as the son of man did not come to be served,

but to serve and to give his life as a ransom to many.

So to me, serving others, this is probably the most impactful way that I've seen it affect people.

When we lived in Garner, we had a little cookie cutter neighborhood with 50

houses with a loop and everything.

And me and Julie would walk around the loop and we got some new neighbors at

one point and they'd just bought

a house and they'd been working on the yard. We hadn't met them yet.

And the yard was just topsoil. You could see he was trying everything.

He was watering it every day, seeding it. It just wasn't doing anything.

Well, one day I was out walking, it was about 92 degrees probably in Garner,

just completely miserable.

And I look out there and Him and his wife, his name's Matt and Tristan,

they're out there in the yard, and they got two, three big piles of sod.

And they're just huffing it, putting it in wheelbarrows and putting down sod

because they couldn't get the grass to grow.

I was walking, and God was like, you need to go help him lay some grass.

I was like, okay, that sounds fun, I guess.

A lot of times, the Holy Spirit will say something to me, and I'll go,

I'm good. I appreciate it, but I'm not going to lay sod today.

But today, I said, okay. I went back to the house, and I put on some work shirts

and pants, and I walked over there.

I still hadn't met him yet, and I introduced myself to Matt and Tristan.

And I just started grabbing grass. And he's like, what are you doing?

I was like, I'm going to help you lay this grass, man. It's miserable out here.

He's like, really? And I was like, yeah, let's go. He's like, okay.

So we laid grass all day. We set up the sprinklers. We did the whole yard. It was awful.

And we got done. We sat on his porch. We had a couple beers. We hung out.

And he was just like, I can't believe you started laying grass.

What's wrong with you? And I was like, I don't know.

And, and to be honest, that's, that's the spot where I should turn it into a

God conversation say, because God loves you and he loves me and I'm doing it

to love on you, but I didn't.

But eventually we did have those conversations and it came up all the time.

Like he would tell everybody he met if, if somehow the Palmers came up in the

conversation, he would tell that story. So it was super impactful.

Just, just listening to the Holy Spirit and going and laying grass,

which doesn't sound like a big deal, impacted him so much.

And he talked about it all the time. And we became good friends with him.

And he would ask questions and we would have God conversations.

And I'm not sure if Matt and Tristan are saved. I have no idea.

They've moved and we've kind of separated now because they've moved to different

cities and we have to. So we've kind of lost touch.

But I know that it brought him to those conversations which is all we can really

ask for is give them the opportunity and so yeah,

Another way is by discipling others. Matthew 28, 19 through 20,

the Great Commission, right?

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name

of the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

So Jesus, before he left, told his disciples and is telling us virtually the same thing.

Go and make disciples. That's what he's telling us to do. That's his last thing he told us to do.

And we're doing this with our small groups. We're discipling each other.

We're making new disciples.

We're bringing people in. We're talking to them about God. We're trying to disciple

each other. Our small group is amazing.

There's so much input from every direction. And Andy will say something that'll impact Brianna.

Maddie will say something that'll impact George. And everybody just interacts

left and right. And it's awesome.

And we should be taking what we're learning in those situations and helping

to make other disciples and therefore growing the kingdom of God.

So we talked about the how. Why do we share the gospel? Why do we proclaim the universal reign of God?

Well, Matthew 28, 19 through 20, same thing, the Great Commission,

Jesus commands us to do it.

It's a direct command from Jesus to his followers. were to obey His instructions

and spread the gospel to all nations.

So that's one of the main reasons. God told us to do it, and we should be listening to it.

If we're followers of Christ, we should be doing what He told us to do,

what His final instructions were for us to do.

We should also be motivated by God's love. And this is what I was talking about

with the salvation ending with us.

We should be overwhelmed by God's love for us.

We should be overwhelmed with our own salvation, and it should pour out to others.

It should fill us, and then we should be going, hey, Ben, I got to tell you something, man.

Like, I love you as a brother, and this is why, and this is what God did for me.

We should be telling that to people at work, at the golf course,

whatever, Looking for ways to do that.

2 Corinthians 5, 14 through 15. A little nod to the pastor, the preacher.

For God's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died.

And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves,

which is what I want to do all the time and not spread it because I want to

be myself and not listen to God sometimes.

We should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again.

When we understand the depth of what God did for us, it should motivate us to spread that to others.

It should be just like a waterfall filling the fountain and then pouring it out.

Another reason is we should do it to obey the Holy Spirit.

Acts 1.8, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem.

And all of Judea, and to the ends of the earth. We should be listening to the

Holy Spirit going, hey, look at me.

I'm infinitely more important than the conversation you're having right now. Yes, Laura.

I'm infinitely more important than the football game that's this afternoon.

I'm infinitely more important than the job you're working on this week.

We should be listening to that and acting on it. We should be looking for those opportunities.

The Holy Spirit directs us to witness. And when he does, he will have it set up for you, right?

If the Holy Spirit asks you to go lay grass for Matt, when you go lay grass

for Matt, he's going to talk about it for years to come.

Like he's going to lay the path for you. He's going to, if he asks you to go

pray for somebody because their husband had an accident last night and they're

working in a, in a hotel changing sheets or whatever, and you feel like Like

the Holy Spirit tells you, you should go.

And they're going to go, I can't believe I need somebody to pray for me.

Like it's going to be ready for you.

So listen to the Holy Spirit. He will tell you, he will direct you.

And he will also lay the groundwork to where it's not going to be a stumbling

thing. It's going to be something that's already set up for you.

We should be sharing the gospel to bring salvation to the lost.

And this is a repeating pattern, but Romans 10, 13 through 15,

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

How then can they call on the one they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without somebody preaching to them? And how can anyone

preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of

those who bring the good news.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the news of Jesus to them.

It's like a humbling, it's a very humbling statement.

And it's, there's a lot of people that are saved that aren't sharing their salvation.

I'm one of them. God's talking to me. You know, this is for me.

I've rarely shared my testimony or shared anything.

You know, I don't talk a lot. That's just part of my nature.

But God is saying, look at me. Josh.

Yes, God. Look at me. I'm infinitely more important than your insecurities.

I'm infinitely more important than your anxiety, your fear, your work, whatever it is.

God is infinitely more important than all those things.

And also, if we don't share it, how are they going to hear it?

You know, we're relying on other ways for it to happen.

My best friend in the world is sitting right here.

I never really shared the gospel with Jordan. But Jordan's saved.

He heard it from somewhere else. But I spent many years hanging out with him,

never talked to him about it.

So if something would have happened to Jordan, I would be devastated.

So we need to use that. That we need to understand that and to love the people

we love and see them with God's eyes and love on and share the stories or else they might not hear.

So I wasn't planning on crying.

Jack wagon. So.

The last reason is for the Calebs in our life. I worked with Caleb for many

years, kind of a similar situation.

We were good friends. We talked about everything.

We talked about Caleb was a Georgia football fan, and I was a Clemson fan,

and we were kind of rivals.

And we talked about how Caleb loved to hunt, and he had a camp that they went

to every year for two or three weeks, and they hunted a bunch of men, his dad and everybody.

We talked about different weapons. We talked about conspiracy theories.

We talked about being ready if something happens to the economy.

We talked about how he loves BMWs and how he was doing this modification to his car.

We talked about how I love poker and different theories of how to play poker.

And I never once, I'm talking about hours and hours and hours of sitting in

a nuclear power plant with them.

I never said, do you know Jesus Christ?

Do you know what God did for you? You know what God did for me?

I could have just said, do you know what God did for me?

And just told him that story. I never did that.

About six months after this story

with Caleb, we're at a nuclear plant in Missouri. He's on night shift.

Caleb gets off work. He's about 36 years old. He comes home.

He's very fit, very healthy young man.

He comes home, eats dinner with

two of his roommates that we're working with, goes and takes a shower.

They go to work and say, we'll see you in the morning. He goes and lays down.

He doesn't get up. He has a brain aneurysm.

I've talked to Caleb's dad. Caleb's dad is saved. I believe Caleb was saved,

but I never talked to him about it. And I let that opportunity slip.

That's heavy. And it can happen quickly. It can happen to young people.

It can happen to anybody you know. We just don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

So we have to seize those opportunities.

And we just have to make God infinitely more important than anything else.

And let's share and make it important, and then we can talk about football,

and then we can talk about whatever else we're talking about.

But let's make that what we're doing.

We're listening and we're sharing that. So for communion today.

As we get ready for communion and worship team comes up, I just want,

there'll be somebody in the back and there'll be somebody in the front with the elements.

And just as you're taking it today, just listen for God saying,

look at me, look at me, mountainside.

Let's be a place where heaven meets earth and we proclaim the universal reign of God.

Let's make that part of our soul, part of our body. Let's make it very important.

Let's make it infinitely more important than everything else we're making important.

Or let's make it the stepping stone.

The first thing we're doing is that. So...

Music.